Reading Guide for Globalization (Week #12)

The reading guide for this week is now available at:

http://www.fxshen.com/gov97/Gov97_Week12_ReadingGuide_Globalization.pdf

Readings for Week 12 (Globalization)

Here are links to the reading materials for this week on Globalization:

[NOTE: These 3 links are now dead. The articles can be retrieved via e-resources at Harvard Libraries]

[1] Hoffman article
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~fxshen/gov97/Hoffman_2002_ClashOfGlobalizations.pdf

[2] Huntington article:
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~fxshen/gov97/Huntington_1993_ClashOfCivilizations.pdf

[3] Additional Huntington interviews:
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~fxshen/gov97/HuntingtonInterviews.pdf

Reading Guide for Development (Week #11)

The reading guide for this week is now available at:

http://www.fxshen.com/gov97/Gov97_Week11_Development.pdf

Reading Guide for Peace (Week #10)

The reading guide for the week is now available at:

http://www.fxshen.com/gov97/Gov97_Week10_ReadingGuide_Peace.pdf

Reading Guide for the State (Week #9)

The reading guide for the week is now available at:

http://www.fxshen.com/gov97/Gov97_Week9_ReadingGuide_State.pdf

Hypothetical for Response: Research Design

1. Please consider the following hypothetical and respond.

2. After examining all of the issues that political scientists study, the Harvard Government Department has decided that the most important issue for its students to study is the state in Africa. Because the need for new information and analysis is so pressing, they have also decided that in addition to senior theses, every junior and sophomore will write a thesis too. Every thesis must somehow contribute to our knowledge about the state and Africa.

3. Based on your reading of Herbst, and on whatever other backgrounds (courses, policy work, etc) you have at your disposal, come up with a rough sketch of the following three components of a thesis proposal:

a) The general topic

b) The specific question you’re going to try to answer in the thesis (or put another way, the puzzle that you’re going to try to solve)

c) How you’re going to go about answering the question / solving the puzzle

4. Here is one example off the top of my head:

a) General topic: the relationship of missionaries to state formation in Africa

b) Specific question: Are African states that experienced greater presence of European Christian missionaries during colonialism subsequently more likely to be states with stronger internal control?

c) Methods & Evidence: I will select two countries alike in many ways except that one had high presence of missionaries, and the other had low presence. I will then look at their subsequent postcolonial experiences, and see if there are linkages to the missionary historical record. I will be examining first-person accounts (e.g. diaries, letters), formal statements (e. treaties, contracts), economic data if it’s available (e.g. spending on churches in the countries), and social data (e.g. data on converts if available).

5. Here are some initial tips for coming up with the research design:

a) Think about what’s missing from the account, and then come up with a research design that might help to fill this gap in knowledge.

b) If there’s something you’re always fascinated with (e.g. religion, the Internet, interest groups, farming, etc), see if there’s some way to work it into a thesis topic.

c) Think about the ways in which the other theories you know might challenge or nuance the Herbst account. Can this be turned into a thesis research topic?

Reading Guide for Democracy (Week #8)

The reading guide for the week is now available at:

http://www.fxshen.com/gov97/Gov97_Week8_ReadingGuide_Democracy.pdf

Democracy 5: Evaluate the Explanations

You don’t have the necessary statistical background to challenge the empirical findings, but you do have plenty of background to evaluate the explanations for the statistical results presented. You’ll note that they employ an inductive method, with their explanations coming after they identify significant statistical relationships. They tell different stories to explain the relationships. Pick one of the stories and evaluate it. Do you agree? Would you tell a different story?

Democracy 4: Find a part of the text you don't understand

There are many points in the text where a summary statement is made. Even if you don’t understand the statistics behind the conclusion, the statement might strike you as correct, incorrect, provocative, or confusing. If there are places in the text you want to shine the spotlight, we will go through them in section.

Democracy 3: What’s the ‘big idea’? What do the authors actually find?

The authors present a series of findings, big and small, through the course of this text. Especially with all of the statistical jargon that you don’t understand, it may be easy to lose the big picture in what they describe as a “forest of numbers”. But step back and try to summarize the work in your head. Pinpoint a few of the findings and tie them together for yourself. Then try to figure out: what’s the big idea being advanced here? What theory has been proven? What arrow diagram would you draw up on the chalkboard? (Note: Yes, you can bet that someone will be asked to draw their diagram on the board!)

Democracy 2: Remembering Arendt: Do you like this approach more?

It would be difficult to find a more stark contrast in analytical methods than this book following on the heels of Arendt. Which approach do you like more, and why? Are you making your decision based on subject-specific criteria (e.g. it’s better to study X with method Z), or are you making a general claim (e.g. it’s almost always better to use method Z than method Y).

Democracy 1: Defining Democracy (for empirical analysis)

This week we will talk about definitions in a new way, through the notion of “operationalization”. You’ll see this concept a few times in the book, and it means the process by which you translate (i.e. “operationalize”) an abstract concept such as democracy into a measurable number. We will walk through this process in class, but you should think about it before hand.

First, think about what ‘democracy’ as a regime type is? What constitutes a democracy? You can likely think of multiple definitions, so the follow-up question is: which definition(s) do you want to use? And this leads you to ask: for what use? Try to figure out what the authors’ objectives are, and consequently how they define democracy. What are the benefits of this approach? What are the drawbacks? Did the authors do the best they could? Could they have tried something else?

Reading Guide for Totalitarianism (Week #7)

The reading guide for the week is now available at:

http://www.fxshen.com/gov97/Gov97_Week7_ReadingGuide_Totalitarianism.pdf

Totalitarianism #5: The future of totalitarianism

In her preface to Part III, Arendt writes that she was articulating and elaborating questions “which my generation had been forced to live for the better part of its adult life: What happened? Why did it happen? How could it have happened?” (xxiv). What questions, if any, does your generation have to ask about totalitarianism? Does Arendt’s writing offer any guidance for your questions, or your answers, related to totalitarianism? Or, with the dismantling of the Soviet Union, the rise of the international economic system, and global communications, is Arendt’s theory dated? Find some specific portion of Arendt’s study that either, and evaluate whether in today’s world it is illuminating or irrelevant.

Totalitarianism #4: The end of history?

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Francis Fukuyama argued that we have arrived at the “end of history” by which he means: “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

Do you agree with this position? Is totalitarianism an out-moded concept in today’s world? What would Arendt say to this?